Darkmoon Faire ticket clarifications
by Mathew McCurley 
Dec 6th 2011 at 5:45PM
Bashiok's post clearly points out that the max number of tickets a player can get during each Darkmoon Island week is 145 tickets. The only issue is that a mount from the Darkmoon Faire costs 180 tickets, so players will have to wait until the next Darkmoon Island opens to claim their first mount reward. Now that the number of tickets is spelled out, it doesn't actually seem as bad as I originally thought it was going to be.
However, the weird thing that still permeates all of this is why playing the games at the Faire, the real focus of the island, rewards players with the lowest amount of tickets. The random Darkmoon artifacts that you get as drops from PvP, dungeons, and raids give substantially more in terms of tickets than the games themselves; the random pickups or Auction House items eclipse the daily games in terms of rewards. I really like the new Faire and hope that the prize ticket changes for the games can be upped to reflect their focus.
Hit the jump to read Bashiok's breakdown of Darkmoon Faire tickets.
Darkmoon Faire Tickets
Thanks everyone for your feedback. To hopefully clear up some of the confusion over time investment vs reward costs we've broken down exactly how many tickets you can obtain in a single Darkmoon Faire week. The design intent of the Darkmoon Faire is that it's available for one week out of the month, and in that one week we expect you to be able to obtain a significant amount of tickets. To clarify the OP's point of how long it would take to obtain an entire set of cosmetic gear, the math presented was incorrect, and it would in fact only take 4 Darkmoon Faire weeks to complete an entire set. That's of course still no quick task, and the intent is not for it to be. There are plenty of rewards that can be obtained in one or two weeks of the Darkmoon Faire, but we expect that an entire set will take a few events to obtain.
Here's the breakdown:
Tickets Per Faire
Dungeon: 40
Heroic Dungeon: 15
Raid: 10
Tradeskill quests (primary): 8
Tradeskill quests (secondary): 12
BGs: 15
Kill Quest: 10
Mini Games*: 35
Total Tickets per faire: 145
* 5 mini games, available daily: 7*5=35
As an example, here are some options that you can choose over the course of two Darkmoon Faires (2 weeks over 2 months):
Prioritizing mounts/pets: 1 mount + 1 pet, with 20 tickets to spare
Prioritizing pets: 3 pets, 20 tickets to spare
Prioritizing cosmetic armor: 4 pieces of cosmetic armor, with 30 tickets to spare
Prioritizing heirloom armor: 1 piece of heirloom armor + 1 heirloom weapon, with 20 tickets to spare
Keeping all of this in mind we don't feel the current ticket acquisition rates or reward costs are out of hand, but we're interested to hear your thoughts after reading this information and considering the longevity of the content, as well as the 'once a month' format of the faire. We'll be continually evaluating it, and we're looking forward to incorporating more goodies to be won, and more activities to the faire, in the future.
Here's the breakdown:
Tickets Per Faire
Dungeon: 40
Heroic Dungeon: 15
Raid: 10
Tradeskill quests (primary): 8
Tradeskill quests (secondary): 12
BGs: 15
Kill Quest: 10
Mini Games*: 35
Total Tickets per faire: 145
* 5 mini games, available daily: 7*5=35
As an example, here are some options that you can choose over the course of two Darkmoon Faires (2 weeks over 2 months):
Prioritizing mounts/pets: 1 mount + 1 pet, with 20 tickets to spare
Prioritizing pets: 3 pets, 20 tickets to spare
Prioritizing cosmetic armor: 4 pieces of cosmetic armor, with 30 tickets to spare
Prioritizing heirloom armor: 1 piece of heirloom armor + 1 heirloom weapon, with 20 tickets to spare
Keeping all of this in mind we don't feel the current ticket acquisition rates or reward costs are out of hand, but we're interested to hear your thoughts after reading this information and considering the longevity of the content, as well as the 'once a month' format of the faire. We'll be continually evaluating it, and we're looking forward to incorporating more goodies to be won, and more activities to the faire, in the future.
Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Filed under: Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
Noyou Dec 6th 2011 6:31PM
When you first come into the faire there is a NPC on your right for game tokens. Opposite of that, there is one on the left, who has info. If you don't have the quest, there should be a chat bubble selection that says, "give me another adventurers guide" or something to that effect. With so many NPC's there it is easy to over look. Having gone through it on 5-6 toons now helps :)
Ilmyrn Dec 6th 2011 6:31PM
The NPC at the portal will give you a book for free if you talk to her and ask about the journal.
djsuursoo Dec 6th 2011 6:16PM
so, what do we do with the old tickets?
i wound up accumulating a bunch of them back when darkmoon was like 'hey sweet xp for my lowbie!
is there a exchange program, or anything like that?
Drakkenfyre Dec 6th 2011 8:52PM
You look at them, and understand that in order for you to spend as much time as possible on the new faire, and to maximize the "length" of the new DMF, your old tickets are now worthless.
Sorry, just like previous holidays, if it used a currency, a new currency has been put into place to make everyone have to grind them out again.
djsuursoo Dec 6th 2011 9:12PM
figured it was something like that.
pity there's no 10:1 redemption program or anything.
Xastur Dec 7th 2011 12:33AM
@Drakkenfyre: You're incorrect. When they switched the Brewfest tickets to tokens, they had a vendor for exchanging them.
ldene Dec 6th 2011 6:15PM
er.. didnt they nerf the tickets from dailies down to 1 per daily?
djsuursoo Dec 6th 2011 6:17PM
yes.
statistics are for the duration of the fair.
ldene Dec 6th 2011 6:23PM
my bad, mis-read it, just ignore me :(
Thander Dec 6th 2011 6:15PM
So you're guaranteed to get 65 tickets per month, just looking at the solo stuff. Remember that the rare items from dungeons, BGs, raids are not BoP. Supplement that with your normal runs of battlegrounds, dungeons and raids. You should be pretty close to 90 tickets per month, which I don't think is that bad.
Note that you can also switch tradeskills to do more profession quests. This requires 75+ in the tradeskill to get the quest. That's probably too tedious for most, though.
Thander Dec 6th 2011 6:17PM
By "not BoP", I mean you can buy and sell those items on the AH to improve your ticket gains. I always like when Blizzard adds ways to spend gold to speed up grinds. I wish it was done more often but that might make gold farmers more rampant.
yagamimoon Dec 6th 2011 6:18PM
I wouldnt mind getting at least one mount per month, just to feel im progressing somehow :(
But then again, im not going all the way QQing like the rest of the people in forums. If it's not possible, then whatever.
Philster043 Dec 6th 2011 6:20PM
The Darkmoon Faire is fantastic. Just did it yesterday and had a lot of fun with it. The Pit is especially cool for PVPers.
I'd like to see more of this kind of content in the future, for sure.
Matthew Dec 6th 2011 6:41PM
I lasted 6 seconds in the pit, as a ruthless disc priest!
Philster043 Dec 6th 2011 7:00PM
I'm a disc priest too and I'm not sure I even lasted 6 seconds!
But, a group of four (the ones that ruthlessly killed me) invited me to join them and we almost got it done, but some other group demolished us at the final hour mark.
Kirex Dec 6th 2011 10:37PM
A lot of focus has been on the prizes from Darkmoon fair and tickets. Another benefit of the island that I noticed last night that it is a great place to go fishing. all around the Island are pools of crates that randomly spawn. 1 crate gave me a stack of whiptail some ember cloth and and a few guardian elixers. The crate farming is awesome for getting mattes for proffesions.
FartyMcGee Dec 6th 2011 6:41PM
And it seems that the replica items, which I am most excited for, are not BoP, which means my non-85 alts can get items and send them to my main (85) for some hot transmog action.
Drahken Dec 6th 2011 6:54PM
If you drop a profession and level another one to 75, you can do its quest as well. Do this for all of the primary professions and you can get an extra 36 tickets a month. I did it for five of them last night. Just need another four.
kewl97 Dec 6th 2011 7:27PM
It obviously depends on your level, and if you've unlocked it, but the Argent tournament is better for collecting Heirlooms.
Artificial Dec 6th 2011 7:34PM
Oh lovely. It's nice to know it only takes four fairs for someone who's completely hardcore about getting every last ticket they can each week to complete a single cosmetic set. What that means is for people to play more casually like myself, getting even a single cosmetic set is unlike to happen in an entire year of playing. Thanks, but I can just skip yet another ridiculous grindfest.